Instinct, a one-year-old startup building a personal AI assistant, has raised $250 million in a Series B round co-led by Index Ventures and Benchmark. The financing brings its total funding to $350 million and values the company at $2.5 billion, according to figures it provided to The Wall Street Journal.
The assistant connects to a user’s apps and devices and accepts requests through text messages and calls. Founder Noah Shinn says early users have used it to plan road trips, buy groceries and concert tickets, cancel subscriptions and organize a wedding. The product remains in private beta, so those examples are company-reported experiences rather than evidence of broad adoption.
Instinct’s access model has also raised privacy concerns. Users have questioned the breadth of permissions needed to organize personal services and parts of the company’s terms of use. The new capital gives the 23-year-old founder’s company room to expand, but trust will depend on clear data boundaries, narrowly scoped permissions and proof that the assistant can act without exposing sensitive personal information.